Chad Darnell
strips down for our feature on the beauty and blemish of the
human body.
Chad Darnell,
35
Atlanta
Likes: hands
Dislikes: stomach
Attention, gay
magazines: Chad Darnell is putting you on notice. “I
think we all feel like we’re measuring
ourselves against some sort of standard that’s
completely unobtainable,” he says. “When we
flip through magazines, we see these pictures of guys
who are completely juiced up with ripped bodies and
huge muscles. Whether it’s an ad for a car
dealership or a protease inhibitor drug, it’s always
the same shirtless hot guy!” Darnell says he
used to hope that he’d have that
“perfect” body, but he now dismisses
that ideal as unrealistic. “No matter how many
push-ups or crunches I do, that’s just not my body
type,” he says. “I don’t care
what personal trainers say.”
Formerly a
casting director, the 35-year-old bristles at a standard of
beauty he calls “airbrushed” and
“Photoshopped.” “I always hated when I
had to cast a show with attractive people,” says
Darnell, who cast Alias for five years.
“Whenever Sydney Bristow went to a sex club,
there was not a runt in the bunch for fear that the
camera would land on him.” He says he prefers healthy
alternatives to looking good; he quit drinking and
smoking this past year, and is currently training for
his fifth AIDS marathon. So is he content with his
current exercise regimen and lean body shape? “As
happy as I am with my body, I’m not going to be
running around shirtless,” he confesses.
“I’m happy with my body, but it’s
not perfect.”
Click here to follow The Advocate on Twitter.
Page 1 of 3
Profiles by
Neal Broverman, Kyle Buchanan, Japhy Grant